My trip to Scotland - first two days

Day One - July 20

We headed out around noon with a quick stop at, "McDonald's." Our first destination was the MOA (Mall of America).  I am not a big MOA fan.  It is a shopping mall, super-sized.  I don't like shopping malls so my dislike increases proportionately with the MOA's size.  However, my daughter the Princess wanted to take the Monkey for the first time & Mom LOOOOVES MOA. 

We wandered around for a few hours, stopped at Orange Julius.  Monkey loved my Tripleberry drink.  I think partly he likes that I feed him via the straw.  His Mom uses silly sippy cups!

Refreshed by our smoothies we headed for the, "Underwater Adventures."  Mom & Princess have both been through previously, (the whole like/dislike malls thing).  I had not, so Monkey & I got top gawk together for the first time.  Monkey was a bit unnerved at first about the fish near and over him.  He calmed down and got interested in seeing the swimming, "kitties."

We followed that with dinner at the, "Rainforest Cafe."  Monkey was not really that excited by it.  It was very loud and after an initial interest in the fountain we were seated next to, Monkey was just in sensory overload.  We ate as quickly as we could, and left for our motel.  Princess & Monkey left us and now Mom and I re having a quiet early night.  Tomorrow we fly!

Day Two - July 21

Day two started earlier then planned when a phone call from the Boy woke me at 5 AM.  He was just wondering if I had left my car keys behind as he had locked his INSIDE my car.  grrrrrr  I informed them of their location and then started my day.  Bathe, dress, pack eat breakfast in the breakfast room & then on to the shuttle.

Security at the airport went fast & quite quickly we were sitting in our terminal.  Mom & I took turns running over to the Money Exchange and getting our money exchanged into pounds and picking up a phone card.  I now have a prepaid debit card loaded with pounds, too.

Back to sitting, waiting - and waiting as our flight was delayed.  The storms in the midwest delayed the plane's arrival at the Minneapolis airport.  Finally we were off to Newark, New Jersey where we arrived almost an hour later.  We arrived at the C Concourse on the opposite end from our flight to Glasgow, so we ran across the concourse.  Mom stayed there with our baggage while I took off to meet my dinner date, my dear girl friend Dande.  She drove an hour up to the airport to meet up with me.  We rode the train over to A Concourse and had a nice light dinner at TGIF.  I had the soup and salad as I wanted a light meal while traveling.  The salad was nothing to make McDonald's side salad envious, but the Chicken Noodle was amazingly delicious!  Back to C concourse where I had to go back through security bearing a huge brick of fudge that Mike, Dande's fiance had sent Mom & I. 

I was directed to the wrong line, they sent mew to the multiple luggage line.  So I stood in line with my fudge & cell phone (is that security's idea of multipole baggage????).  I started to get a bit panicy about being late, so I called the Princess and chatted  with her until I was near the front of the line.  I was behind a family  of non-English speaking people at the strip off and go thru point.  It was a nightmare.  Security kept screaming at them one at a time as they tried to go thru in multiples and did not want to take off jewelry.  They were beeping and screaming and at least 14 of them by my count.  Finally security waved me thru with my cell and fudge and shoes.  I literally flew thru the concourse!

I made it in plenty of time for us to get settled before boarding the plane.  I must say trhe flight over on Continental was very nice.  I was seated between Mom & an Irwin cousin Adele.  We had dinner (my second, although my first really was lunch).  I had a fairly decent chicken caccitora!

The airline has touch video screens embedded in the backs of seats.  There are games, videos and music plus an inflight map that gives you the location - speed - distance - eta, etc.  It was really quite cool!  I never even played with my ipod or gameboy.  I watched the movie, "Monsters vs. Aliens."  Then after an arduous trip to the bathroom I actually went to sleep fr a few hours.